


to my obligations

by cuneifire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 18:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15891591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuneifire/pseuds/cuneifire
Summary: Strangely enough, this feels like home.





	to my obligations

**Author's Note:**

> Set right after the pilot.   
> another fandom to which i am 10 years late. yay. also, I'm literally on episode 11 & have no clue what happens later so sorry if i missed some grand reveal or whatnot.

Sam’s sitting there, staring out the window, hands tapping restlessly on the Impala’s dashboard. He was always nervous, but since Jess' death it’s gotten worse. He can’t close his eyes without seeing her, body enveloped in flames and dripping blood. Can’t unsee it. Can’t undo it. Can’t do anything except tap his fingers on the dashboard, sit stiff as a board in the shotgun seat, and stare out the window and watch trees whip by, taking them to wherever, whenever.

Dean’s humming something, a low whittle of white noise in the back of Sam’s mind. It’s another old rock song, although he can’t place it- he hasn’t listened to that stuff since he left for Stanford, since when he thought he’d put this- all of this- aside, away, finally done something right, something  _normal_ and  _safe_ with his life.

But no. Here he is, back in the car like all those years ago, although John’s gone and there’s maybe less resentment in his heart than cold blooded vengeance, but that doesn’t change that Dean’s still playing (and  _singing,_ god help him) crappy old music that direly needs an update, that he’s  _still_ in shotgun, that he can lean back on the well shined vinyl of the seat and close his eyes and maybe he won’t see her blood coated body.

Maybe.

It’s weird enough that he’s back, it’s weird enough that he’s not in a pressed suit at an interview, it’s weird enough that no matter what he seems to do there’s always this constant drag- like a chain if it were invisible and intangible- towards this, towards Dean and this stupid car, to the shitty motel rooms and diabetes causing diet and the constant precarious balance of saving other people’s lives and losing their own.  

It’s weird enough that he’s  _here,_ in the first place, but it’s even weirder that he almost doesn’t want to leave.

And Dean’s still playing that _fucking_ music, the melody’s damned well rammed in and imprinted itself into Sam’s skull by now, and fuck, why is he humming it too.

He taps his fingers on the dashboard. It takes him a second to realize it’s to the music, high tempo and rhythm and all.  

He eyes seem to slide to Dean, like they used to but not quite the same way, something's different, and yep, there he is, nodding to the beat, hand over the wheel and eyes to the road like there’s nothing to it except the endless sky spreading out in front of them, a gleaming star map of the whole wide universe. His lips are tilted to something that could be a smile- maybe is, maybe isn’t- and it takes Sam a second to realize that it doesn't matter what the expression is, because he’s mirroring it. 

He wipes the expression off his face before Dean can see it, because there are things he doesn’t want his brother to know, things he can’t and won’t and just plain shouldn’t tell him, because that’s just how things are with them, that’s just how things are gonna be nowadays.

But he can’t help himself from thinking, when he leans back and the sun’s light is striking him from a very particular angle, when Dean’s music is just above white noise in the back of his mind and when it smells like grease and motor oil, that in spite of everything, this feels precisely like home.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed/ feedback is always appreciated!


End file.
